


The Compound

by mylittlesyn



Category: Original Work
Genre: Military, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittlesyn/pseuds/mylittlesyn
Summary: This is entirely original work based off of a dream I had. Please don't steal this... If you manage to find it anyways. I'm really proud of this and it means a lot to me.
Kudos: 2





	The Compound

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely original work based off of a dream I had. Please don't steal this... If you manage to find it anyways. I'm really proud of this and it means a lot to me.

I placed the crockpot that contained the vegetable stew on the table, while the kids finished setting the table to sit down to eat dinner together. Daniel had just walked in through the door right on time as always. He walked over to the dining room table as Belle and Eugene rushed down the stairs. Everybody sat down and we all held hands to pray. I never really believed in God, especially now during the Cold War. I played along to keep Daniel happy, everyone has their ways of maintaining their sanity.

“Let us pray,” said Daniel. “Heavenly father, we thank you for this food that you have placed before us. We ask you to bless it, remove any impurities from it, and let it make us strong and healthy as we eat it. Thank you Lord, Amen.”

We all proceeded to pass around our food to serve ourselves. I grabbed a hefty serving of the stew and tried to conserve the rest of the food we had. “How was work today, Daniel?” I asked, curious to see what progress they made today in the lab.

“Same as always. Still having difficulty dealing with this form of radiation.” He seemed to be tired of talking about it, so I decided not to question much further. “How was class today, honey?” Daniel asked me.

“Class today went well. I taught about the Earth’s core and the Earth’s formation.” I mentioned thinking about my class of 8th graders.

“That sounds nice” Daniel said before taking another sip of his vegetable stew.

Suddenly I grabbed a napkin from the holder on the center of the table and coughed into it. I was really hacking up phlegm. Daniel looked at me worried. “Are you okay, honey?”

Once I was finally able to stop I managed to get out the words I’m fine and I looked down at the napkin I had grabbed. I stared at it complete utter shock. It was not mucus, but it was green. I couldn’t manage to look away from it, yet I could feel the piercing stares Daniel and my children all had on me. Daniel got up and stood behind me to look at the napkin. Without words I looked up at him to see his shocked expression.

“Excuse me.” I managed to get some words out of my mouth before leaving to go up to my bedroom. I started pacing the room. All different thoughts racing through my head but they all came up to the same conclusion: I was going to die. I had hoped I would have more time before the radiation poisoning got to the point where I was going to die. This is how it always started. I remembered how it happened to my friend Stacy. She coughed up green to start off with. She then began to vomit, she got the runs with a headache and developed a fever within a couple of weeks. Later she just felt dizzy all the time and could barely stand from how weak she felt. I looked in the closet to search for a shirt.

There it was, still stained. Stained from when I went to visit Stacy and she threw up blood all me… I began to shake at those memories… at seeing the blood everywhere… And soon that would be happening to me… I jumped at the sound of Daniel entering the room. He came up to me and put his arms around me trying to calm me down as I stood there still holding the shirt, shaking. “Shhhh…. It will be alright, my sweet Carola.” I immediately pushed him away.

“How can you say that?!” I shrieked. “How can you say everything will be ok when you still don’t even know for sure what the nuclear compound that the Russians created?! I mean you’ve had, what? Almost 5 years since they planted it?! Isn’t it your job to know what these kinds of things are?! I mean you are a nuclear engineer after all!” I could tell I had poked at some sensitive spots but I couldn’t contain myself right now. I was full on panicking. I began pacing the room again in hopes that movement might calm me down some.

“Look I know that we haven’t made much progress on trying to find a way to help dissipate the radiation, and I’ll admit we don’t know a whole lot other than that the compound the Russians created has a longer half-life than normal. We are ok here. We can move you to medical, the place furthest away from all radiation, to give you more time. A breakthrough can happen any day now, you know how science works.” He was really trying to reason with me, but I wasn’t having it right now. All I could think about was the day everything happened…

I remember early in the morning, before the sun rose, around 5am hearing sirens go off… Then a swarm of helicopters… Ropes were being dropped down and all non-civilians were being swooped away. I remember everyone was outside panicking, trying to figure out what was going on and why the helicopters were evacuating the military personnel out of the base. I had run over to Corporal Haner’s house. I had managed to get there just before he was swooped away too. _I’m sorry_ he had said. _The Russians planted radioactive material all around the borders of the base. We were instructed to evacuate and leave you all behind… It’s standard military protocol and we are to abandon all of you… I’m so sorry…_ And just like that he was gone…

“It’s not just about me! I’m tired of waiting for the day where I can worry about normal things, like what college is Bella going to get into, or will Eugene ever want to play sports?!” At this point I knew I was yelling loud enough for the kids to be able to hear me. I didn’t want to worry them. I wanted to continue the façade that all of us lived in; maintaining normal lives to pretend that everything is okay so we can keep our sanity. I took a deep breath, and looked into the eyes of my loving husband.

He took his hand and placed it on my cheek. “I want those things too. This is why I work so hard in the lab, so that one day we can go back to living normal lives. I’m doing it for us. I’m doing it for the children.”

The children… I began to question whether they even remember having a normal life outside this dreaded compound. This wasn’t right! None of us deserved to be forced to live in here just because the military can’t afford to help us out! All this money and time spent on a stupid war when people are suffering right underneath America’s nose! “I can’t do it. I refuse to live like that.” I couldn’t stop pacing. I needed to get out. I needed to run away from the Ft. Gibbs military installation. I needed to escape to my own freedom and choose my own destiny. “I need to be able to make choices in my life for once!”

“And you can make your own choices. If you want to stay here at home we can arrange for the doctor to come see you here.”

I was so angry I threw the blood-stained shirt at him. “Why?! So we can have more of these?!”

I saw him hold the shirt in his arms and tears began to roll down his face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do. Please… Let me help you.” I stopped pacing at his pleading.

I hadn’t realized that I too had been crying. I touched my cheeks and felt where wet warm tears had resided. I slowly moved towards him and rested my head on his chest. I felt myself giving in and calming down. “I’m sorry. I’m just so scared” I whispered to him. I hugged him tightly and stood back only to look into his emerald colored eyes and kiss his cheek.

Just as I began to feel at peace again in his arms I began coughing. I pulled away and walked into the master bathroom and stood in front of the sink. I placed both hands on the counter trying to stabilize myself while getting over this coughing fit. But there it was again in the sink. I had coughed up more green. With the green my hysteria came back and I soon found myself needing to find an escape from this trap that the US military had abandoned us in for the past 5 years leaving us only to survive using the agricultural research facility and the Meals Ready to Eat that filled the underground bunkers.

I looked up at my husband once more and kissed him on his soft lips. “Tell the kids I love them. I can’t have them watch me die. They’ll only question what will become of them if they do” and out the door I ran as fast as I could. I ran straight out the front door of the house and just ran in a straight line from there. I released my hair from the bun that it was trapped in to feel my wavy black hair move in the wind. The streets were fairly empty for everyone was at home with their families at this time of the day. I kept running past all the houses on our street and soon I was in the middle of town.

I must look mad to anyone who was watching me. I could still feel tears coming down my face, but I couldn’t feel myself crying anymore. I was far too focused on running and trying to feel the freedom I so rightfully craved. I found myself on Main Street and began coughing once again. I ran several hundred yards before I tripped and tore my skirt. I tried to hold on to the fence in front Larry’s Café but fell anyways. I couldn’t bring myself to stop coughing. I had scratched my knees from the fall and I gashed my hand from the fence. I watched as the red blood mixed with the green making a dark sickly brown that resembled the death in front of me.

I decided to take off my shoes thinking that they might be slowing me down and preventing me from feeling the freedom I am trying to achieve. I didn’t really have an end point or a certain location that I was trying to reach. I didn’t really care either. I just wanted to run. I wanted to feel those endorphins running through my veins in hopes that I might feel free. In hopes that I might calm down. In hopes that maybe, just maybe, I might become rational once again.

I had ran out of downtown and found myself running into the forest. It was here that I decided that I needed to escape. I needed to take control of my life again and break free from this hell hole the military had left us all in. I was going to make a break for it. I was going to attempt to leave the compound.

I had heard stories about people attempting to leave the compound before. Nobody ever saw bodies because nobody dared to get close enough to the radiation to see if they too would die. But people who got too close to the radiation never did return, and because no help was ever returned to us from the outside world, the people were assumed dead. But now I wanted to be able to make my own choice for when I die, or whether I even have to die at all.

I looked around the forest and everything seemed so luscious and green. There was plenty of vegetation and even a few squirrels running around. How could a place where so many people live to die, could contain so much life? It was this that made me question what they must have told my family about what had happened to us. I questioned whether they even told my family anything at all, or just left them wondering where on the face of the Earth I was.

I began to imagine what it would be like if I got out. I would probably go back to Venezuela to see my family. I could go back to Florida to visit where I grew up. I reminisced about living with my family in Florida. How I missed feeling the warm sun on my skin throughout every day of the year. I longed for my mother’s cooking. I could almost smell the tajadas. I hadn’t had any since the incident because I never had any plantains. I could feel myself running faster as if by running faster I would get to the tajadas more quickly.

Another coughing fit brought me closer to reality and snapped me out of the dream state I had entered. I began to feel nauseous so I slowed my running to a light jog. I looked around to see that much of the green vegetation had disappeared and all that remained was what was left of the dead trees. I leaned against a tree as a vomited. I could feel the cold sweats running down my forehead but I knew I needed to carry on. 

I began to jog again towards the border running through the remains of the forest. It was starting to get dark and the forest looked eerie in the light of the sunset. The sun was behind me, but the light at the end of the tunnel was full speed ahead. I started to cough once more, but I didn’t stop. I knew if I stopped it would slow me down and make it worse for my radiation poisoning.

I wanted to run again, but I didn’t feel myself having the strength to do so. The hairs on my arms were raised and I felt myself begin to shiver. I must have a fever, which means I’m getting closer towards the border. I didn’t allow myself to slow my pace despite my waning health. I knew once my pace started to slow that it would be too late for me. It seems like those years of cross country in high school and college were really starting to pay off I thought to myself in attempt to make myself giggle.

It was starting to get harder to maintain pace with each stride I took. I could tell that my balance was off and my head was pulsing from the pain. Each new symptom meant that my health was deteriorating, but it also meant that I was closer to my potential freedom. I did question whether or not I would actually be able to make the escape. I wondered whether I could climb the fence and make it over with my health and how it would be by the time I reached it.

I could finally see the fence come into my field of vision. This means I was in the home stretch. This caused me to start running again. After my running began I could feel the endorphins rush to me once again. I could tell that this time it had brought a friend called adrenaline. The border seemed so far and yet so close. My freedom lied just on the other side of that fence. I knew once I reached the other side my instincts would take over and give me the strength I would so critically require.

I could feel myself getting colder, but I let the memories of what life was like outside the compound drive me to the border. I was closing in on the fence and I remembered that there was barbed wire at the top of the fence. Shit! How am I supposed to get around that…? I started looking at the remains of the trees. They seemed pretty climbable. The branches also looked to be fairly sturdy despite the fact that the trees were dead. I thought the best way would be to climb the tree and jump over and across the fence.

I finally reached the border, and it was there that I collapsed. It’s okay. I can afford to rest for a minute I told myself. Just after I finished telling myself I threw up blood. I started up with another coughing fit just after throwing up and hacked up more green. I sat still for a minute staring at the sickly red and green mix together. I felt chills go down my spine and I couldn’t tell anymore if it was from the fever or the color of death that lie before me. Either way this horrible feeling made me get up and begin to climb the tree I had collapsed next to.

I was never really good at climbing trees, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I felt myself slipping a few times but I could tell I was making progress up the tree towards the branch I needed to get to. I would be roughly 12 feet above ground when I would take the jump. The thought of the height scared me but I knew it was the best way. I finally reached the branch and hung onto it like a sloth. I creeped my way towards the end that just barely reached the other side of the fence.

I remembered needing to try and roll. That’s what they did in movies after all. I figured that would probably be the best way to stick a landing in this situation. So I let go and did my best attempt to roll when I landed. I fell to the ground and I’m not quite sure what it would’ve looked like but I know I certainly tumbled and looked like an idiot.

I laid on the dirt terrain realizing that I just escaped the compound. I needed now to get up and escape the radiation, but I felt so weak. I gathered all of my strength that remained in my body and began walking away from the compound. I would cough every now and again on my travel. Every so often I would need to stop to vomit more blood again. Each time I did I could feel my energy being drained along with the blood. After what seemed to be miles I reached a meadow and what seemed like a park. I thought that perhaps this was far enough from the radiation for me to take a rest. I remember thinking to myself how maybe if everyone had taken track in high school, we all could’ve escaped. Too bad we were all just a bunch of scientists. I chuckled at the thought before letting myself collapse from the sharp pain that had developed in my stomach. I sat up again only to throw up once more before blacking out.

* * *

I awoke in a metal chair with an IV in my arm. I looked around and the only things in the room were the chair I was sitting in, what was more than likely a one-way mirror, and a table in front of me. I was more than likely in a military interrogation room. I should have known! I never even thought about this outcome… I was so enveloped in the idea of finally being rid of the compound that I never thought I would end up stuck in another one.

A man wearing the standard army uniform walked in. “You should’ve stayed within the compound, Carola…”

“Haner?” I asked shocked to see him. I looked at the rank on his uniform and saw that he had become a Master Sargent.

“That’s right. Now because I liked you, I’m giving you a choice. You can take option A, which is go back to your family in Venezuela, we’ll help treat your radiation poisoning and, pretend none of this ever happened and never speak of it again.” I looked at him still shocked at how emotionless he seemed about all of this. I suppose he had five years to get over it, but still. “Or B, you can give me the misfortune of having to kill you.” I felt so disgusted by him.

“How can you say something like that?! Do you not remember all of the people you left behind?! Do you not remember all of the people that are currently suffering because they were left for dead?! My family is still back there. I only ran away and escaped because I was coughing up green, Haner… I was going to die…” He looked at me with a cold dead look in his eyes.

“So you’re not going to keep quiet?” he asked me with such a monotone voice.

“How can I with my family still back there? If they’re brought to me I will.”

“You know I can’t do that. Once I evacuate a few people _everybody’s_ going to want to be evacuated. We don’t have the time or money for that Carola. I’m offering you a lot as it is.”

I looked him dead in the eyes and said: “I’ve accepted my death, but not my family’s.”

“Well Carola, I really was hoping it wasn’t going to have to come to this.” He held a gun up to my head and those same words that I had heard five years ago rang though my ears once again: _I’m so sorry…_


End file.
